French Section of The Workers' International - The Fifth Republic

The Fifth Republic

The SFIO received its lowest vote in the 1960s. It was discredited by the contradictory policies of its leaders during the Fourth Republic. Youth and the intellectual circles preferred the PSU while the majority of workers considered the PCF as its spokesperson. The Fifth Republic's Constitution had been tailored by Charles de Gaulle to satisfy his needs, and his Gaullist movement managed to gather enough people from the left and the right to govern without the other parties' help.

Furthermore, the SFIO hesitated between allying with the non-Gaullist centre-right (as advocated by Gaston Defferre) and reconciliation with the Communists. Guy Mollet refused to choose. The SFIO supported François Mitterrand to the 1965 presidential election although he was not a member of the party. The SFIO and the Radicals then created the Federation of the Democratic and Socialist Left (FGDS), a centre-left coalition led by François Mitterrand. But it split after May 1968 and the electoral disaster of June 1968.

Gaston Defferre was the SFIO candidate in the 1969 presidential election. He was eliminated in the first round with only 5% of votes. One month later, at the Issy-les-Moulineaux Congress, the SFIO was refounded as the modern-day Socialist Party. Guy Mollet passed on the leadership to Alain Savary.